The present invention relates generally to floor mats used for protecting underlying finished, unfinished floors or carpeting, and more specifically to floor mats used in passenger vehicles.
It is common to provide the floors of passenger vehicles with protective floor mats, used for protecting the original equipment carpeting from wear and dirt, and also for providing an easily removable protected surface for those vehicles having uncarpeted flooring. To prevent the mats from interfering with vehicle operation and to releasably secure them in position, various fastening techniques have been employed. One conventional floor mat fastening scheme is to secure vertical posts in the vehicle floor, either before or after the original equipment carpeting has been installed. The posts often have an irregular shape such as an enlarged head and narrow neck, or another shape for releasably and lockingly engaging a complementary grommet. The grommets are typically provided in multiple pieces, and are assembled on the mat by sandwiching the mat body between grommet components, about an opening in the mat which accommodates the post in the floor. Often the grommets define an opening that matingly and releasably engages the post, and in some cases includes a resilient or deformable portion for releasably locking the engagement between the post and grommet to more securely hold the mat in position in the vehicle. In other cases, the grommet opening has an irregular shape for releasably engaging a vertically-extending post formation.
In many cases, the grommet technology has become relatively complicated to assemble on the mat and costly to produce, requiring as many as five-to-six separate pieces, including the post assembly. Also, since many vehicle manufacturers specify the structure of the vendor-supplied grommets, grommet manufacturers are forced to create and maintain multiple tooling configurations for each vehicle manufacturer customer. Since the grommet manufacturer and the mat manufacturer are typically separate, there is also a requirement for coordination of the designs of the respective products by the separate vendors to meet vehicle manufacturer guidelines.
Thus, there is a need for an improved vehicle floor mat grommet configuration that is relatively simple in construction. There is also a need for an improved vehicle floor mat configuration that is readily adaptable to a variety of post attachment fastening technologies.